announcer: at some point, the committee will vote on whether to bring the legislation to the house floor for debate and a you can follow along live on c-span3, stream live on our free mobile app, c-span now, or online at c-span.org. here on c-span, our live coverage continues now with education secretary linda mcmahon testifying on the president's 2016 budget request and the trump administration's plan to dismantle the education department. we join the house appropriations subcommittee hearing in progress.

mr. harder: i think what's happening with head start is very concerning. we're seeing these delays, these freezes, that ultimately hurt kids. we've seen head start schools close because they only have three days of funding. and i think that is going to have an implication on our kids' ability to read, write and do math. i would think as the secretary of education you should have a perspective on this and a real goal toward committing to the parents of head start students, in my district across the country, to fight to make sure this program is fully funded. is that something you believe in, that this program should be funded and push back on any attempt to cut it? sec. mcmahon: i'm going to let the department and the agencies that are responsible for those parts of the budget do their job. mr. harder: i think it has an implication for the department of education that is real. let me tell you what's at stake.

in my district, 1600 kids rely on head start. this is the first type of education that any student receives. and i think passing it off on some other department is unacceptable. because we know that head start students are 13 percentage points less likely to commit a crime, they're more likely to graduate high school, less likely to experience a teen pregnancy. this is our kids' futures and our entire communities are lifted up because of this program. so i think saying that this part of the education system isn't your responsibility doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. i think you should be terrified at the idea of head start being gutted because it's going to have major ramifications on our students' ability to have the future that he with want. it's your duty to make sure that programs like this continue. and so i hope that you see that our kids aren't line items, they're not pawns in a political game, they're not disposable. and that we need to make sure that head start is continuing to be strong and that cuts like the ones we've seen over the last couple of months don't happen. if we're going to be able to make sure that every kid has a quality education in the united states. i hope you remember that.

and i yield back. >> mr. simpson. mr. simpson: thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for being here today. i appreciate your testimony and just very, very quickly. for mr. pocan's education. is professional wrestling a business? sec. mcmahon: sir, it very definitely is a business. mr. simpson: so you ran a business. just so you're aware of that. anyway. let me ask you a couple of questions. i don't disagree with my colleagues have been saying. i agree with what mr. ellzey said. education, and i have no problem with trying to move much of this education back to the states, had a couple of superintendents tell me a couple of years ago that their problem was they got 5% of their funding from the federal government and 95% of the rules came from the federal government. but there are some successful programs that we want to maintain. you said in your statement that

you encouraged all of your children to go to postsecondary school, they needed to continue their education to be success successful. you said you evaluated and looked at these programs and wanted to get rid of those that were uneffective and in the skin where budget you said trio -- skinny budget you said trio and gear-up were a relic of the past when financial incentives were needed to motivate institutions. i'd like to see some of those studies and evaluations because every one i've seen says it's one of the most effective programs ever. when we had secretary spelling here 20 years ago, they tried to put all these programs together and just send them out to the states. she said they had studies that showed that they were not a very effective program. and i asked her for a copy of those studies. 20 years ago, i'm still waiting. because there are no studies out there that show that it is ineffective. it is one of the most effective programs in the federal government. there's for, you know, one of the best programs in the history of education and most meaningful has probably been the g.i. bill.

we took veterans from world war ii and gave them opportunities to go to college. this is the g.i. bill for low-income, minority communities. and it's supported by many, many members of congress. we have about 800,000 low-income potential first-generation college graduates, and i don't know if you've ever gone and talked to any of these students. these are people that had never thought of going to college because nobody in their family had ever -- nobody in their community have ever done that. we got a problem in indian health service, trying to get doctors and dentists to go out on a reservation. the only way you're going to do that and solve that problem is when native american children go to college, go on to medical school, go on to dental school and come back to their reservations to serve their people. that's how you're going to solve it in the long run. so can you speak to me how the department arrived at this funding level and how you plan to ensure that trio remains accessible to students who rely upon it? sec. mcmahon: well, thank you very much. and i understand that there are

many services that are served. trio started out as three programs, it's now about eight. and it first started when there were first generation of students who were going to college for the first time. and agree with you, there are a lot of parts of trio that talked about those students and what their possibilities could be and interest in them. did i see in one example, trio recently, that one child was brought onboard and talked about going to college but part of the trio program was taking them to disney world at that time. so i'm not sure that all the expenses in trio should be there. i think trio, you know, those moneys are going to be going out for this program for this year. so we are looking at all of the programs. the need for trio, i don't think, is nearly as strong because there are outreaches from college news to into local communities and there should be more of universities and

secondary education levels reaching into those communities. they should be talking to them about college. but i think they should also be talking to them about other ways that they could have skills, that they could support, whether it's the tribal nations that you were talking about, or whether it's their community. as i mentioned a little earlier, it might have been before you came in, i think we need to re-imagine and look at education differently in our country. i think we need more work-based projects, teaching, and our middle schools and high schools to prepare people to get into the economy. i mean, we kind of made -- we focused on college and degrees and we kind of made trade skills, hey, that's something you go into if you can't make it at college. we need this workforce. mr. simpson: yes, we do. sec. mcmahon: we need this workforce so let's train a lot of those different kind of programs. let's give them skills that can make it available for them to go to work right away and be in the economy and maybe they will also put themselves through school. mr. simpson: before you eliminate trio though, i need to

see what those programs are that you're proposing that we're going to change them to. this is the most important program for low-income people who had never thought of -- you gave the example of one individual out of 800,000. the program is highly successful. i'd like to see other government programs could learn from this program fram frankly and i would like to know, if we're going to change it, how it's going to change and how we're going to have access to those kid. and i understand that the department has not yet leas re-- released continuation awards for the program even though those grants expired on may 31. could you tell us where we are on those awards? sec. mcmahon: i believe they will be going out by july 1. i think that's correct. if it's not, i'll get back to you. mrs. watson coleman: thank you, chairman. and thank you to my colleague who just asked those questions about important programs that get students ready for college. good morning and thank you for being here. i'm going to ask you a couple of

questions that i just need a yes or no. do you believe that there is illegal discrimination against people who are black, brown and other types of discrimination in jobs in education in this country? yes or no? sec. mcmahon: i think it still exists in some areas. mrs. watson coleman: can you tell me why the office of civil rights and the department of education is being decimated? sec. mcmahon: it isn't being decimated. mrs. watson coleman: what is it being? sec. mcmahon: we have reduced the size of it. however we are taking on a backlog of cases that were left over from the biden administration -- mrs. watson coleman: then why would you reduce their resources if you've got a backlog, in addition to having confronted those cases that are going to come before you now? sec. mcmahon: because we're working more efficiently in the department. mrs. watson coleman: ok, thank you. i've got real serious questions regarding your commitment to

civil rights, to our students, to our teachers, to our faculty. and places of that nature. do you believe that migrant students should have access to public education resources? sec. mcmahon: well, migrant students do have access -- mrs. watson coleman: do you believe they should continue? sec. mcmahon: in some instances, yes. mrs. watson coleman: ok. do you believe that the position of this administration to reduce the resources and the support to migrant students at the same times they've encouraged and perhaps facilitated the coming to this country of white south afrikaners is an issue of favoritism and prioritization of white over color? sec. mcmahon: well, if -- i am going to have to take a couple

minutes to answer this. because this administration, president trump has made it very clear that he will not tolerate discrimination, whether it's anti-semitism, whether it's race-related at all on any of our schools. i'm going to answer this question. mrs. watson coleman: i'm going to tell you. i know what the president's position is. he's made it quite clear. i'm asking you as the secretary of education, how you perceive this. yes or no? sec. mcmahon: i am the secretary -- mrs. watson coleman: -- replacement and favoritism, say no. if it is, say yes. sec. mcmahon: i am the secretary of education who has been approved to run this agency by congress and i was appointed by the president and i serve at his pleasure under his mandates so therefore the direction of his administration is what i will follow. mrs. watson coleman: thank you.

do you recognize the fact that one of the important reasons that the federal government got into public education was to establish that there would be standards so that children would be treated equally in pursuing education that states had been found to be -- to discriminate against black students in particular, in many of the states, and that to send that responsibility and authority back to the states would just enhance those disparities again, considering the environment in which this president continues to foster about who is important and who's not? yes or no? sec. mcmahon: congresswoman, there are laws on the books in title 6 that totally -- was mrs. watson coleman: laws don't mean anything to this administration. i'm asking you -- do you realize that to send authority back to

the states, to eliminate your oversight, to eliminate your accountability, to eliminate your determination as to resources going to schools that are teaching, public schools that are teaching underserved communities, this will result in the very reason that we had to get the involvement of the federal government in this issue? and that's a yes or no. sec. mcmahon: it isn't a yes or no. but i will not respond to any question based on the theory that this administration doesn't care anything about the law and operates outside it. so that is a mischaracterization and i won't respond. mrs. watson coleman: i reclaim my time for five second. you can say anything you want, your rhetoric means nothing to me. what means something to me is the actions of this administration. from the president of the united states conducting himself in a corrupt manner, to his family enriching him and himself

corruptly. to determine that this administration can tell you what's right, what's wrong, what's lawful, what's not. that it can arrest judges. it can arrest lawyers, it can use its power to bully people and i'm telling you the department of education is one of the most important departments in this country and you should feel shameful to be engaged with an administration that doesn't give a damn. i yield back. >> ms. letlow. ms. letlow: secretary mcmahon, thank you for being here and thank you for your dedication toward furthering education in our country. we're so grateful to have you in that chair. and i think all of my colleagues on this dias and most in congress would agree that education is the answer. education is the answer to lifting communities out of poverty. if you educate a child, you give them a future and i know you believe that wholeheartedly.

and one thing that we've seen happen across our state of louisiana is when parents don't have a choice, that's a travesty. and so for those parents who public education was failing their students, they had the opportunity to form charter schools. and what a blessing that has been to louisiana. i'd like to give a shoutout to one of my most impressive charter schools that i've had the opportunity to tour, it's called ace charter school. it's a group of concerned parents, especially mamas, mama bears who came together and said, we need an option for our autistic children to be able to have a place where they can grow and thrive and receive special education directed straight towards them and it's been an incredible honor to witness them thrive. they have a waiting list that blows my mind, how many parents are eager to get their children into those schools. and so while we wait on what the final plan will be for the department of education to send

more power back to the states, i was encouraged that in the skinny budget you plussed up a bit for charter schools and would just like to hear your thoughts on how we move forward with that option for parents. sec. mcmahon: thanks very much for your question. and with the increase in the budget, i think the president is showing his commitment to wanting to make sure that all students had the opportunity of choice. there are about a million students on the waiting list now for charter schools. and hopefully this plus-up in the budget, which is not going to cover all of the needs for sure, but will give more opportunity for a charter school and other options for choice. i know your chief of education in the state, and i've talked to governor landry about a lot of the accomplishments that have been -- that have happened, i've toured ace and spent some time there and was totally amazed with the -- with those students

who many had said were uneducatable. and looking at the things that they have been able to do. because they did have the opportunity to go to that particular school. and i'm pleased that the founder of ace has come onboard with us for her consultant. i'm very pleased about that. so i do believe that with more choice, with more opportunity, we will see our scores go up. because what's happened is there are many children that have been trapped in failing schools. my esteemed congresswoman has left, i was going to say, one of the things that i think is the most detrimental to underprivileged students or any child that doesn't have equal access is they get trapped in a failing school and that should not happen. their parents should have the ability to say, my child should be able to go to this school over here because they're doing better. they can do better if they have that opportunity. and if we continue to pigeon

hole students in failing schools and not give them that opportunity, we are failing them and quite frankly we have failed in education in our country. when we see these scores continue to decline and the answer is we'll throw more money, create more programs, let's do more of this. it's not worked. it has not worked. the scores continue to go down. where we've seen the most successes are in states with innovation policies and i have the most ultimate respect for teachers. i think teaching is one of the most respectful professions that we have -- it should be the most honored. and when teachers are allowed to teach and be creative and innovative in their classrooms and not spend half of their day in compliance with regulatory requirements because of the programs that are there, we will siebert outcomes and results. and i am a firm believer in that. i'm a firm believer that education is the cornerstone of our country. it's a cornerstone for

developing our economics, our defense and every other thing we do. but there does not have to be a bureaucracy in washington that is dictating how our students and our children throughout our country do get educated. ms. letlow: could not agree with you more. our scores continue to climb. real quickly, i have a bill that i introduced, h.r. 345 3-rbgs the empower charter school educators to lead act. that would provide modest targeted planning grants using existing charter school programs funds to help experienced educators with early stages of designing a high-quality charter school. do you agree that a small amount of planning funding can make a big difference in helping strong local applicants get their innovative charter schools across the finish line? sec. mcmahon: i do hope this plus-up with the president's budget, some funds that can be used for many different kinds of programs. ms. letlow: thank you for your time. i yield back. >> ms. dean. ms. dean: thank you, chairman

aderholt, ranking member delauro, for hold iting this hearing and i thank you, secretary mcmahon, for being here today. i want to start with the role of the department of education. i come at this as a mother, a grandmother, a former teacher my steph, a former -- myself, a stormer state legislature. i have a lot of experience with the education system in pennsylvania, as well as the country. first, the history of the federal education involvement and mrs. watson coleman was getting at some of this that i'd like to build upon. federal investments in education began to increase dramatically in the 1950's and 1960's and 1970's in tandem with the rise of the success of the civil rights movement. americans finally began to recognize the vast inequalities in our education system. thus federal funding was used to improve education access for students from poor backgrounds or minority students or women, for people with disabilities and/or marginalized groups.

finally congress established the department of education in 1979, replacing the office of education. secretary mcmahon, it's alarming that you and the president want to turn that clock back. you take us back to a time before any federal oversight of education, before many of the programs that guarantee free and equal access to education for all americans. you said as much in your testimony. after all the department of education's work to ensure equal access to education, you're embarking on the department's final mission, you intend to put yourself out of a job. that's a little jarring to me. if you were a pediatric oncologist, i'd welcome that. let's get you out of a job through cures, through healing, through ending of pediatric cancer. but ending a department that is supposed to oversee the education of our very youngest, to guide their future, you have taken the time to educate yourself about this history?

i'd encourage you, go ask students who attended school back then, black student, brown students, students with disabilities. students from poor families. what was access like for them before the department of education? frankly, eliminating the department of education to me is rather orwellian. the president and his administration don't want an educated populous. why don't we just go back to the book "1984 requestings "if it hasn't -- if the 1984" if it hasn't been banned. it's clear that you want an uneducated electorate so mr. trump and his courtiers can control thought, therefore control votes and control the population. i'll note a secondary measure here that is going on. we know charter schools were originally supposed to be incubators for best ideas, practices to be brought back into the public school education system so every kid had an access to such things.

but this administration and you who want to put yourself out of a job following the playbook, page 319 of project 2025, first sentence, shutter the department of education, you're all following the book, that book, too bad that one wasn't banned. and yet privatizing is really the other ambition. an uneducated electorate and profittization of our education system. do you promise us that that isn't your ambition? sec. mcmahon: that clearly is not my ambition. i think i stated that very well today. ms. dean: why in god's name do you want to shutter it? why don't you want to protect kids with disabilities is? why don't you want to protect kids who have been, every decade, denied equal access simply because of how much their parents make, the zip code they live in, the color of their skin? why are you shuttering a department that's supposed to lift up those children? sec. mcmahon: because those programs don't have to flow through the department of

education and they -- ms. dean: they can flow through the state? i'm a -- i was a state legislator. that's called shift and shaft. i've spoken with the governor of pennsylvania. they can't pick up the tab any more for education of our students. not to mention it would be inequitable by state by state by state. why are you in this job at all if you don't have a dedication to the future of our children? why are you in this job? sec. mcmahon: i too am a mother and a grandmother. and i want the best for my family going forward. ms. dean: vouchers. sec. mcmahon: for my great-grandchildren and i hope to leave a legacy that we have established best practices for education that all the states can use. that would be a great legacy to be able to leave, to be able to show states, these are some of the things that they can do. i think states have to look at their budgets -- ms. dean: madam secretary, the legacy you will be leaving is that i shut down the department of education. how we edkate our children determines not just their future, but our own.

i think it's a sad legacy you will leave. i yield back. sec. mcmahon: the department of education is not educating anyone but i can say this and i will. mr. aderholt: dr. harris. mr. harris: thank you. let's pick up where you just left off. [laughter] if i read the test results correctly, we are getting worse, not better. is that right? as a country? let's take reading fourth grade. sec. mcmahon: that is true. mr. harris: oh, ok. so the department of education is failing. i mean, as it's currently structured, it fails. the purpose of the department of education is to improve america's scoring. our collective american scoring. and we'll talk about reading in the fourth grade in a second. is to actually improve education, right? so when we spend 20% more than we did a few years ago, we would expect like a 20% improvement in test scores, a little improvement in test scores. no, we get a decrease in test scores. i'll just want to remind people

that -- kind of the best example of american education are our private universities. right? i mean, harvard, yale, princeton, dartmouth. go down the list. they're all private. we're demonizing privatized education? we're demonizing private education which is actually the crown jewel of the american system, is our private universities. this is a little bizarre. if we wanted to create an uneducated electorate, we'd juice up the department of education. because it's actually winding down the education. if you look at test scores, i'm just -- look, objective. it's been years since we put it in place. let's look at the trend lines. if you wanted to create an uneducated electric rate, you would continue doing exactly what we're doing. because we have schools in baltimore city where we spend an in order ant amount of money that have zero reading proficiency. like zero. oh, but they spend $57,000 on cell phones from the esser funds

during the pandemic. so they had money to buy cell phones for administrators, but not to actually improve scores. i don't know. i think we have a horrible record in this country of failing our children. and the thing that, well, states can't pick up the tab. no, the federal government can't pick up the tab because we are $2 -- we're running a $2 trillion deficit. as i remind my colleagues frequently, might sound like a broken record, we had a moody's downgrade last week. and they basically said, we have to stop federal spending largess. and i think you picked the department that is an abject fail you are a understand go, look, we have to stop pending -- spending. you either make it better or stop. clearly washington doesn't know how to do it better. that's just my opinion. charter schools are great. as you know, and i'm sorry i'm late, i missed we were negotiating this little reconciliation bill, and it does include for the first time a federal voucher program.

now, i would advocate that charter schools are ok but in some states like mine, the public school system has a strangle hold on charter schools and they look in the end mostly just like public schools. and perform only a little bit better. but the voucher program i think, the gentlelady from louisiana's absolutely right, i think that's the answer. always competition. that is what makes america great. that's what makes almost every aspect of america great, is competition. i will ask you about the mississippi miracle. and i want you to describe it and how important it is that we actually convince all the states to do what mississippi did. because of its tremendous improvement in test results. if you could explain the mississippi miracle. i'm sorry, maybe you did already but if not -- sec. mcmahon: i didn't. mr. harris: please explain. sec. mcmahon: mississippi miracle was really about their reading program. what they did was return to basics. what they've done in louisiana. what texas is now looking at. what other states are looking

at. that is the returning to the science of reading. i did talk about that a little bit earlier. the science of reading. which is getting back to phonetics and teaching the way that students learn to read better in the beginning and we are seeing incredible improvements. mississippi miracle. i think mississippi was number three from the bottom in terms of their proficiency in reading and through this program that they launched, they've come up to number 20. maybe a little higher by now. but that was a huge jump. mr. harris: if i could remind everyone, the miracle was they didn't do social promotion on reading. you had to learn to read when you left the third grade because the studies are pretty clear. the star study in tennessee. if you don't read by the end of third grade, forget it. everything beyond there requires reading skill, will you fail in the rest. i'm sorry i interrupted you. sec. mcmahon: that's exactly right. as i said earlier, up through third grade, you're learning to read and beyond that you're

reading to learn. and you're right. you cannot be successful if you cannot read. mr. harris: our current policy just condemns, unfortunately, frequently inner city youth to a life that is -- we condemn them to a life where they can't read and because they can't read, they won't succeed like everyone else does. so i congratulate you for your efforts, madam secretary. i yield back. sec. mcmahon: thank you. >> thank you, mr. chairman. and thank you, secretary mcmahon, for being here in our committee hearing this morning. you know, i believe we are very fortunate to have you. and i think president trump made an amazing pick when he nominated you and i think you will take the department of education to where it needs to be. and that is supporting the states. mr. clyde: sending education back to the states. for decades the department of

education has grown far beyond its original intent, imposing mandates, funding ideological programs and entangling schools in red tape that distracts from its core mission of education. but not education at the federal level, but education at the state level. all the while, student performance has declined, as had been mentioned plenty of times. costs have ballooned and bureaucratic overhead has exploded. president trump's f.y. 2026 budget is a budget request is a strong step in the right direction as it cuts wasteful and duplicative programs and it lays the groundwork for an education system that is more accountable and far more responsive to students than the one we currently have right now. this budget would spend less centralized less, and return power to where it belongs. to the states, to the parents, and to the local communities. but first i want to address the radical agenda ideology promoted by the department of education during the last four years of the biden-harris administration. in april, 2024, the department

finalized a new title ix rule, redefining sex-based discrimination to include gender identity. protecting all students is essential for a strong learning environment and yet this extreme policy put female students at great risk. we've seen the left force female students and athletes to share spaces such as bathrooms, locker rooms and sports with biological males. they have no interest in protecting young girls or women. after all, if you cannot define a woman, you cannot defend a woman. in fact, at last year's budget hearing, former education secretary car doana repeatedly refused to define what a woman was, dodging my question three separate times. secretary mcmahon, can your department of education now define for me what a woman is? sec. mcmahon: me. i was born a girl and i grew to be an adult woman. mr. clyde: thank you, thank you. it's refreshing to see that the trump administration and the department of education with you at the helm can returning to

commonsense policies grounded in biological reality to protect young girls in schools. i was proud to see president trump on his first day in office sign an executive order to push back against gender ideology and restore biological truth in federal policy. surrounded by young female athletes, he also signed an order effectively banning biological males from women's sports. and spaces. president trump took swift action to end the left's harmful agenda that has endangered and devalued women across the country. remarkably, just one day after the order was signed, the naacp updated its eligibility policies to prohibit biological males from competing in women's sports. secretary mcmahon, as you know, president trump signed an executive order on march 20, 2025, to dismantle the department of education. and i'd like you to clear up some misconceptions about this executive order. can you confirm that the president's budget fully preserves critical funding for schools, specifically title 1

part a for low-income districts and special education funding under the individuals with disabilities education act, while also targeting wasteful bureaucracy, but not the essential resources that students and teachers rely upon? sec. mcmahon: yes. mr. clyde: thank you. thank you. since 1980, taxpayers have spent nearly $3 trillion on federal education funding. per pupil spending in politics schools has skyrocketed since then, but test scores have failed to improve meaningfully. reading and math scores have either flat line order declined -- flat lined or declined. does streamlining bureaucracy at the department of education mean students and teachers will receive less funding? or does it actually mean -- does it actually ensure that more of each dollar reaches the classroom? sec. mcmahon: more of each dollar will reach the classroom because we're eliminating a lot of the bureaucracy red tape -- brach red tape that takes --

bureaucratic red tape that takes time and money to comply with. mr. clyde: thank you. thank you. my last question. how does this budget begin the long overdue work of returning educational control to parents and local communities and how does it support school choice initiatives that expand parental options and improve academic outcomes? sec. mcmahon: thank you, sir. for that question. as we said, it does protect title 1-a funding and also idea funding. so those streams are going to continue to come to provide that necessary budget requirements for those students. but just by -- speaking about the president's looking at making sure that no student is imprisoned, if you will, in a failing school. that should not happen. so he wants to have more options. more opportunities. one of those is through increasing the clarter school budget -- charter school budget. he doesn't say charter schools

are the end all and be all. he said t.s.a. choice. if the public school is not providing the kind of education that a student needs, there's an opportunity for a charter school or there's an opportunity for that child to attend a catholic school, or to be home schooled, how can that child under the supervision of its parents and working with the local schools system get the best education possible? it can't happen efficiently from washington, d.c. it needs to happen on a local level. and that's the president's goal and intent. to improve education in our country. he was absolutely angered and embarrassed when he saw what the national scores were. and he said openly when he was campaigning that this cannot stand. that america, in order to be, continue to be the superpower and the number one country in the world, we have to have the best education in the world. we have to provide equal access to quality education for every child in america. and that is his goal. mr. clyde: thank you.

that is very refreshing to hear and thank you for your strong leadership and i yield back. mr. aderholt: thank you. we will now move to the second round of questioning. and we'll cut back on the timing a little bit to make sure everyone gets their questions in so we'll go with a three-minute round. i'll start with ranking member delauro. ms. delauro: thank you, mr. chairman. i want to hit back on trio for a second. your budget justifies the elimination of two bipartisan college access portions. trio and gear-up. and you claim, this is a quote, access to college is not the obstacle it was for students of limited means. what is your basis for that claim? sec. mcmahon: simply because we have more programs reaching into the communities and schools are being more active in recruiting those schools. and if they're not, they should be. because it is, i believe, up to schools also to be reaching in their communities and the state level. so if we can be helpful and

looking at programs that can help with that, that kind of outreach from the state level, then that's what we should do. ms. delauro: let me just -- data is clear. students from wealthy families are almost 3 1/2 times more likely to attend college than students from low-income families. and 76% of students from the upper income bracket complete college in six years versus 48% of students from the bottom income bracket. as secretary of education, you cannot look away from the needs of youngsters from low income -- [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives. >> we're going to leave this now. you can watch on our website, c-span.org. as we take you live to the house floor where members are considering legislation to repeal a biden-era environmental rule. you're watching live coverage of the house here on c-span. lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all gener generations. before the mountains were born or the world was brought forth